A Voice of Ivory
by Shadow of an Echo
Summary: Switzerland muses on the nature of neutrality while reminiscing to himself about the Italy brothers, all with Austria watching on telling the story through ivory keys. This is a short one-shot based on a prompt I filled. No overt parings but a hint of the possibility is there.


**A Voice of Ivory**

The blond nation was always so angry. Whenever anyone crossed him, or saw him, there was a gun in hand, a bullet flying in the air. Peace bought with intimidation, that was not the definition of peace the watcher understood. Was this what neutrality meant? Cutting oneself off until nothing was left? Inspiration was the result of hope, of fear, and doubt. It was the mind's way of coping with the impossible reality of the here and now, getting you through until a new tomorrow dawned. The cuckoo clock. An intricate and beautiful device sure. An invention to be proud of for any clock smith. Yet it was the only creation of any great note to report for centuries.

Was it any wonder Switzerland was so full of rage? Austria didn't think so. Though he did indeed have an opposite, as everything did in a world made of balance.

A country forged in war and blood. An Empire had risen here, one of the bloodiest on record, and the kingdom that followed did not shy away from such measures. Split and torn, brothers given over to two different houses, one raised in warmth, the other in bitterness. The Northern brother was Austria's, and he along with Hungary had shepherded the young country into a one that was dual sided. The first that could create beautiful works of art and rich cuisine, and the other that endured through war and bloodshed. The Southern brother went to Spain, and for as much as the older one cared, he could not give the young country everything he wished for. Spain had been looted and pillaged, money was scarce, and he had to struggle to hold onto the power he had. Yet he tried to shield the young Romano from these troubles, unknowingly fostering animosity.

There was much darkness surrounding the beauty of Italy. North and South alike.

Austria saw it all. Wrote it into the soaring heights and complex rhythms that tore into the soul, sounds that spilled from his finger tips onto the ivory keys; a symphony both chilling and beautiful.

This symphony created the backdrop for the first meeting between nations. Cautious and tentative in the beginning, soon to change. Bitterness grew within the core of Switzerland at the freedom spotted in the Northern brother. The Italian country born of Empires and blood that was so carefree, while his own history of neutrality and stability had left him with the bitter taste of gun powder in his mouth.

There was a hint of something shared, a kindred pain, between the Southern Italian and himself. A hurt, wounding inflicted at a time when the nation they have now become is barely aware of it, yet it shapes their very being. The way the Southerner both coveted and hated his brother, resented the freedom, uncomfortably reminded Switzerland of the way he both hated and coveted his guns.

How could he approach North Italy, when his hands were callused from holding guns, and he knew nothing of speaking kindly to others that were not his sister? This was a hyperactive, humorous, hospitable nation, no matter what his people had done, this was a country who wanted nothing more than to curl up in a patch of sun with a bowl of pasta.

South Italy, there was a wall there, and the real trouble was he wasn't sure which nation's wall was thicker. Guns or words, it didn't matter what you built your fence from as long as it kept others out. To get to Romano, one of them would have to give in first and then help the other tear down their wall. Walls were to protect what was on the inside. Easy enough to say it, but you didn't build them if it was a simple thing to remove them.

From that first meeting on Switzerland was torn about the Italian brothers. Wanting their beauty, needing their warmth, and understanding the darkness unlike most others. Yet halted by the freedom of the North, too unlike him; and stymied by the pain of the South, far too akin to himself.

Switzerland was stuck. It was okay though. He had his sister Lichtenstein, his guns, and cuckoo clocks.

...And all through the delicate dance of nations and time, Austria watched, telling the story using a voice of ivory.


End file.
